title="p. 30" id="pgepubid00035"/>snivelling signs of contrition or repentance; and he will follow me soon, for his surgeon has declared his wounds to be mortal.  It is said that his wife is dead of grief, and that his family of seven children will be undone by his death.  So I am well revenged, and that is a comfort.  For my part, I had no wife.  I always hated marriage.

Savage.—Mercury, I won’t go in a boat with that fellow.  He has murdered his countryman—he has murdered his friend: I say, positively, I won’t go in a boat with that fellow.  I will swim over the River, I can swim like a duck.

Mercury.—Swim over the Styx! it must not be done; it is against the laws of Pluto’s Empire.  You must go in the boat, and be quiet.

Savage.—Don’t tell me of laws, I am a savage.  I value no laws.  Talk of laws to the Englishman.  There are laws in his country, and yet you see he did not regard them, for they could never allow him to kill his fellow-subject, in time of peace, because he asked him to pay a debt.  I know indeed, that the English are a barbarous nation, but they can’t possibly be so brutal as to make such things lawful.

Mercury.—You reason well against him.  But how comes it that you are so offended with murder; you, who have frequently massacred women in their sleep, and children in the cradle?

Savage.—I killed none but my enemies.  I never killed my own countrymen.  I never killed my friend.  Here, take my blanket, and let it come over in the boat, but see that the murderer does not sit upon it, or touch it.  If he does, I will burn it instantly in the fire I see yonder.  Farewell!  I am determined to swim over the water.

Mercury.—By this touch of my wand I deprive thee of all thy strength.  Swim now if thou canst.

Savage.—This is a potent enchanter.  Restore me my strength, and I promise to obey thee.

Mercury.—I restore it: but be orderly, and do as I bid you; otherwise worse will befall you.

Duellist.—Mercury, leave him to me.  I’ll tutor him for you.  Sirrah, savage, dost thou pretend to be ashamed of my company?  Dost thou know I have kept the best company in England?

Savage.—I know thou art a scoundrel!  Not pay thy debts! kill thy friend who lent thee money for asking thee for it!  Get out of my sight!  I will drive thee into Styx!

Mercury.—Stop!  I command thee.  No violence!  Talk to him calmly.

Savage.—I must obey thee.  Well, sir, let me know what merit you had to introduce you into good company?  What could you do?

Duellist.—Sir, I gamed, as I told you.  Besides, I kept a good table.  I eat as well as any man either in England or France.

Savage.—Eat!  Did you ever eat the liver of a Frenchman, or his leg, or his shoulder!  There is fine eating!  I have eat twenty.  My table was always well served.  My wife was esteemed the best cook for the dressing of man’s flesh in all North America.  You will not pretend to compare your eating with mine?

Duellist.—I danced very finely.

Savage.—I’ll dance with thee for thy ears: I can dance all day long.  I can dance the war-dance with more spirit than any man of my nation.  Let us see thee begin it.  How thou standest like a post!  Has Mercury struck thee with his enfeebling rod? or art thou ashamed to let us see how awkward thou art?  If he would permit me, I would teach thee to dance in a way that thou hast never yet learnt.  But what else canst thou do, thou bragging rascal?

Duellist.—O heavens! must I bear this?  What can I do with this fellow?  I have neither sword nor pistol.  And his shade seems to be twice as strong as mine.

Mercury.—You must answer his questions.  It was your

own desire to have a conversation with him.  He is not well bred; but he will tell you some truths which you must necessarily hear, when you come before Rhadamanthus.  He asked you what you could do besides eating and dancing.

Duellist.—I sang very agreeably.

Savage.—Let me hear you sing your “Death Song” or the “War Whoop.”  I challenge you to sing.  Come, begin.  The fellow is mute.  Mercury, this is a liar; he has told us nothing but lies.  Let me pull out his tongue.

Duellist.—The lie given me! and, alas, I dare not resent it.  What an indelible disgrace to the family of the Pushwells!  This indeed is damnation.

Mercury.—Here, Charon, take these two savages to your care.  How far the barbarism of the Mohawk will excuse his horrid acts I leave Minos to judge.  But what can be said for the other, for the Englishman?  The custom of duelling?  A bad excuse at the best! but here it cannot avail.  The spirit that urged him to draw his sword against his friend is not that of honour; it is the spirit of the furies, and to them he must go.

Savage.—If he is to be punished for his wickedness, turn him over to me; I perfectly understand the art of tormenting.  Sirrah, I begin my work with this kick on your breech.

Duellist.—Oh my honour, my honour, to what infamy art thou fallen!

DIALOGUE VII.

Pliny The Elder—Pliny The Younger.

Pliny the Elder.—The account that you give me, nephew, of your behaviour amidst the tenors and perils that accompanied the first eruption of Vesuvius does not please me much.  There was more of vanity in it than of true magnanimity.  Nothing is great that is unnatural and affected.  When the earth was shaking beneath you, when

the whole heaven was darkened with sulphurous clouds, when all Nature seemed falling into its final destruction, to be reading Livy and making extracts was an absurd affectation.  To meet danger with courage is manly, but to be insensible of it is brutal stupidity; and to pretend insensibility where it cannot be supposed is ridiculous falseness.  When you afterwards refused to leave your aged mother and save yourself without her, you indeed acted nobly.  It was also becoming a Roman to keep up her spirits amidst all the horrors of that tremendous scene by showing yourself undismayed; but the real merit and glory of this part of your behaviour is sunk by the other, which gives an air of ostentation and vanity to the whole.

Pliny the Younger.—That vulgar minds should consider my attention to my studies in such a conjuncture as unnatural and affected, I should not much wonder; but that you would blame it as such I did not apprehend—you, whom no business could separate from the muses; you, who approached nearer to the fiery storm, and died by the suffocating heat of the vapour.

Pliny the Elder.—I died in doing my duty.  Let me recall to your remembrance all the particulars, and then you shall judge yourself on the difference of your behaviour and mine.  I was the Prefect of the Roman fleet, which then lay at Misenum.  On the first account I received of the very unusual cloud that appeared in the air I ordered a vessel to carry me out to some distance from the shore that I might the better observe the phenomenon, and endeavour to discover its nature and cause.  This I did as a philosopher, and it was a curiosity proper and natural to an inquisitive mind.  I offered to take you with me, and surely you should have gone; for Livy might have been read at any other time, and such spectacles are not frequent.  When I came out from my house, I found all the inhabitants of Misenum flying to the sea.  That I might assist them, and all others who dwelt on the coast, I immediately